Dark Water: A Siren Novel (14 page)

“Need a seat?” another guy shouted from the bar. “I’ve got two!”

Paige cringed. “He just patted his legs!”

I pulled harder.

“Wrong way!” a third called out from a group of twenty-somethings gathered around a foosball table. “We’re over here!”

A dozen similar comments fired at us like bullets as we made our way to the back of the restaurant. The guys who were either too drunk or not drunk enough to speak up as we passed gave us
slow, appreciative once-overs as they sipped their drinks. Even the ones wearing wedding rings stopped talking to check us out. This kind of attention wasn’t unfamiliar—but receiving so much of it at once was. As I did my best to avoid eye contact, I found myself wishing I’d gone with jeans and a fleece instead of my pretty new outfit.

“Vanessa!”

That voice was familiar. Slowing slightly, I spotted Colin across the crowd. He was sitting in a booth with three girls—the only other girls present besides Paige and me.

“Come join us! We’ll make room!”

As he waved and slid down the bench seat, the crowd shifted, giving me a better view of his company. I’d never seen two of the girls, but I definitely recognized the third.

“Natalie!” Paige called out, tugging my arm. “Let’s say hi!”

As she started to head toward them, my chest tightened slightly. Paige had seemed eager to embrace Natalie’s new friendship, but I wasn’t totally sold yet. Between the strange feeling I got when we’d first met, the salty coffee she’d served, and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I thought it best to be cautious.

That was one reason why I didn’t want to say hi right then. The other was that I didn’t want to keep
our
company waiting—or have to explain later if Colin seemed even more excited to see me than might be expected. So when Paige tugged harder, I stood my ground. She glanced back at me and I nodded to the pub’s second room.

It was smaller but equally packed. And Simon and Caleb sat at a tiny table in the corner.

Paige gave me a thumb’s-up, then turned toward Natalie and held one hand to her ear like a phone receiver, telling her she’d call later. I waved to Colin as Natalie leaned toward him and spoke by his ear. Something crossed his face, but the crowd pushed us along before I could decide what it was.

“Is that a laptop?” Paige asked, as we neared Simon and Caleb.

Reaching the room, which was a designated eating area and noticeably quieter than the bar section, I saw that it was indeed a laptop. It sat on the table between Simon and Caleb and was surrounded by notebooks, pens, and index cards, like we were meeting at the library.

“My mistake,” she said, near my ear. “A computer does not a date make.”

Maybe not, but that didn’t make me any less happy to see Simon. He stood, pulled out the chair next to his, and waited until I was wedged in the narrow space between it and the table before sitting. Caleb did the same for Paige.

“Thank you.” She smiled. “It’s nice to know some mothers are still teaching their sons manners.”

“I’m so sorry,” Simon said. “We had no idea it’d be this crowded.”

“We had no idea there were even this many people still in town,” Caleb added.

“Which is why no apology’s necessary,” Paige said. “It’s actually nice to see. How have things been at the marina?”

I couldn’t tell whether she intentionally directed this question at Caleb (knowing her, she probably did), but he launched into a lengthy update about his boss, Captain Monty, and the marina’s current state of affairs. Too aware of Simon sitting inches away, I was only half-listening to the exchange, when he leaned even closer and apologized again.

“It’s really okay,” I assured. “But why didn’t we meet at one of our houses?”

“I thought it’d be best to avoid the parents. My mom would’ve been so happy to see you, she wouldn’t have let you leave the kitchen without sharing a pot of tea with her first. And I wasn’t sure, but I thought your parents might’ve been just as happy to see Caleb and me.”

“Absolutely. And even if we managed to somehow escape the endless questions about school and family, they would’ve found a million reasons to interrupt us—hot chocolate, snacks, more hot chocolate.” Feeling strangely shy, I gave him a small smile. “You made the right call.”

His lips turned up as his eyes lowered briefly to my necklace, then raised back to mine. “You look really nice, by the way.”

My cheeks warmed. “Thanks. So do you.”

I’d decided to try not to overanalyze every word and gesture in hopes of figuring out what Simon was really thinking and feeling, but I couldn’t help noticing that he’d shaved off his scruff and gotten a haircut. And that he wore khakis instead of
jeans and a brown cotton sweater instead of his usual T-shirt. Unlike our impromptu visit at the lake house, he’d known about this one in advance … so maybe he’d put extra effort into his appearance? The way I had for him?

“Hi, there.” A waitress stood behind us. “What can I get you?”

I picked up the menu as Paige elbowed me in the side. When I looked at her, her chin lifted toward the server. I didn’t know what she wanted me to see—that the waitress wore a mask of makeup? And a shirt so tight, it rose up her abdomen? Or that even though she seemed to be the only employee assigned to the back room, she was completely at ease, like she’d been there a million times before?

“Carla,”
Paige hissed, after we’d ordered.

“Who?” I asked.

“The newbie waitress I hired, who quit after Louis made her cry.” The words flew from Paige’s mouth. “That was her.”

“No way.” I swiveled in my seat for another look. Carla couldn’t have been older than eighteen, and this waitress was definitely in her mid to late twenties.

“I’m sure of it. She’s wearing a silver bangle bracelet engraved with her initials and flowers, the same one Carla wore every day when she worked at Betty’s.” Paige shook her head. “Did you see how she took our order without writing it down? That’s the mark of a seasoned professional, yet a few weeks ago, she couldn’t hold a pencil and pad at the same time without dropping one of them.”

“You taught her well.”

“I’m good,” Paige said, “but I’m no miracle worker.”

Carla disappeared into the crowd in the other room. I turned back to find Simon’s laptop open and facing Paige and me.

“My digital-camera cord was compatible with the camera you guys found,” Caleb said. “We downloaded the pictures to see if we were missing anything.”

He clicked slowly through the shots, each of which took up the entire computer screen. I searched for clues as to whom the camera belonged, but the bigger images didn’t reveal anything the smaller ones on the camera screen hadn’t.

“They still look like ordinary tourist shots to me,” I said.

“Me, too,” Simon said, with a sigh.

“Not quite,” Paige said.

We looked at her, then back at the screen.

“What do you mean?” Simon asked.

She pointed to the track pad. “May I?”

He slid the computer across the table. She scrolled back to the beginning of the slide show.

“A few of these could pass as tourist pictures—the lighthouse, the wide shot of the ocean, even the rickety dock jutting out into the harbor. But if this camera really belonged to a random visitor, it’d also have pictures of the sailboat-shaped
WELCOME TO WINTER HARBOR
sign, the ten-foot-tall inflated lobster waving outside Harbor Sports Rentals, the bronze fishing captain at the end of the wharf. I’ve spent enough time talking to tourists at Betty’s to know what they’re always most excited to see.”

“That lobster does get a lot of attention,” Caleb admitted.

“Plus, where are all the people?” Paige asked. “Tourists love taking pictures of whoever they’re traveling with. Mostly so they can laugh at each other when they relive the memories later on.”

I thought of the old, fat photo albums lining one of the glass shelves in the beach-house living room. My family and I hadn’t been tourists in a long time, and we still had countless pictures of one another standing and smiling by the exact spots Paige had just listed.

“But this is what really makes me think something else is up.” She stopped on an image of boulder. “It’s a gigantic rock. On the beach. A lifelong landlubber might want to document such a sight, but if he did, he’d try to get as much of it as possible so everyone back home could see how big it really was. A nature photographer might be into it, too, but he’d probably balance it better against the surroundings. This shot’s of the top of the rock with a sliver of sand and water behind it. What’s the point?”

She was right. And the boulder was the first of several similar shots. Some were of smaller, rounded rocks, like the kind that blanket the local shoreline. Others were of granite slabs. Still others were of red and gray pebbles that could’ve filled a driveway. And then there were the other close-ups, of logs and driftwood and beach grass.

“Wait.” I put one hand on Paige’s to keep her from clicking forward. “That looks familiar.”

“Really?” she asked, studying the image. “It looks like more random cropped rocks to me.”

I pulled the computer close, squinted. “I think I’ve been there.” I glanced at Paige. “That doesn’t look like anywhere you’ve visited before?”

“It looks like everywhere I’ve visited. That’s the problem.”

I shifted the computer so Simon and Caleb had a better view. “What do you think?”

Caleb shook his head. “I’m with Paige.”

I watched Simon examine the image, hoping for a flash of recognition to cross his face. It didn’t, but something else did: a mixture of excitement and seriousness. I’d seen the look before, like last summer, when, with the help of an old science teacher, he’d figured out how to freeze Winter Harbor for the very first time. Seeing it now made me hopeful—and nervous.

Simon slid his thumb across the track pad. The cursor flew across the rocks and landed at the top of the screen. The next series of clicks happened so quickly, I couldn’t keep track of which files and folders it opened.

Seconds later, the image of the rocks was replaced by a map.

Of Camp Heroine.

“Isn’t that where …?” Paige’s voice faded. “Didn’t you guys …?”

“Yes.” I swallowed as Simon zoomed in closer. “We did.”

“Tom Connelly,” Simon said quietly. “That’s where we found his body the day of that sudden storm, when we were looking for Caleb.”

“Are you sure?” Paige asked.

“The camera’s equipped with GPS,” Simon explained. “It
records the longitude and latitude of every picture. The scenery looked familiar, but using those numbers, I was able to pinpoint exactly where this one was taken.”

“And that’s why it looks familiar to you?” Paige asked me.

I nodded, unable to take my eyes off the red dot on the digital park map. It had been nearly a year, and I could still see every part of him as clearly as if he’d washed ashore yesterday. His bloated torso, the Rolex tight around his swollen wrist … the smile frozen across his face.

“I don’t get it,” Caleb said, a moment later. “Whoever was at your house last night was there to see
you
, Vanessa. We all know your involvement with everything that happened last summer, but the general public doesn’t. Even when you and Simon found that body at Camp Heroine, you stayed in the car while Simon talked to the police on the beach. They never knew you were there.” He stopped, took a deep breath. “Besides Justine, there’s no way to connect you to the rest.”

“And since all the other victims were men, most people no longer associate her with them,” Simon added gently.

I looked at Paige. She nodded.

“They know.” I hated the words as soon as I said them and chose my next ones carefully. “About who was responsible. I don’t know how, but I overheard people talking about them … us … at the lake house’s last showing. Based on this picture, I assume those people are the same ones who showed up last night.”

This was met with a long pause.

“They actually said the word?” Caleb asked. “The one that, until last summer, we’d only read in books?”

We all knew the word he referred to but couldn’t say aloud. The one I still had a hard time saying aloud, even when I wasn’t surrounded by an entire restaurant of potential eavesdroppers.

Siren
.

“Yes,” I said.

“Did you see who said it?” Caleb asked.

I shook my head, then snuck a peek at Simon, who stared at the computer screen. “I didn’t have a chance.”

This was followed by more silence. I wasn’t sure if they were processing, waiting for me to offer more information, or both. I was beginning to wish I hadn’t said anything when Caleb spoke again.

“We should check the other pictures.”

Simon focused on the rock image for another second, then nodded and began entering numbers and mapping coordinates. The rest of us watched without speaking as each familiar location appeared. Three pictures in, Caleb opened a notebook and started writing.

Finally, just when I’d finished off the table’s water pitcher and felt my throat start to close again, Simon reached the slide show’s last photo.